Garden grows laughter from Elon crowd, fertilized by a healthy dose of sarcasm By Hannah Williams
Oct. 29, 2008
ELON, N.C. – Joe Garden entertained the Elon community with The Onion’s satiric headlines and faux news broadcasts mocking the media’s political coverage over the past few campaign cycles in Whitley Auditorium at the university Wednesday.
“I think we need more people that are reading the real news,” said Gardner in the question-and-answer session that followed.
Garden is a senior writer at the weekly online newspaper that provides an interesting take on current event by making fun of the media.
Those who read the real news are better informed and can better appreciate the comedic value of entertainment like The Onion, The Colbert Report and The Daily Show, said Garden.
“What we end up doing,” said Garden, “is reflecting current events, because that’s what’s in the media. “
Garden said he considered himself a writer, rather than a “satiric informer,” as proposed by one student. He said his role was to mock the media.
“Stephen Colbert plays a character. His responsibility is to be true to his characters,” said Garden.
Of Jon Stewart he said, “I think as an entertainer, his responsibility is to the joke first, and to the current events second.”
“My job is important to the paper,” said Garner, “but my job is not important to the public at large.”
“People who read The Onion are a minority. People who read past the headlines are an even smaller minority,” he said.
Garden landed his job with The Onion while he was attending University of Wisconsin – Madison and working in a liquor store where he met Onion staffers with whom he shared his writing.
“Just write,” Garden advised students seeking jobs similar to his. “Try to write as many things as possible, and just get out there and meet a bunch of people.”
Working on The Onion is a lot of fun, said Garden. “We’ll talk about pretty much anything as long as we find the right angle.”
“We draw the line at nudity,” he claimed. Then he projected a photo of a nude man with a censor bar blocking his genitals, which was met with roaring laughter from the audience.
Writing for the paper is a collaborative, diplomatic process said Garden. “Everything we do is voted on,” he said.
Garden said it is becoming increasingly difficult to satirize the media, as the media itself becomes more outrageous.
He cited one of his favorite stories, written at a time when 3-blade razors were the big trend, titled “Fuck everything, we’re doing five blades.” Shortly thereafter Gillette launched a 5-blade razor and made Garden’s piece null.
Garden said he doesn’t watch a lot of TV and doesn’t read reader emails. “Then we really start not being true to ourselves and chase after something,” he said.
Garden said he doesn’t watch a lot of TV and doesn’t read reader emails. “Then we really start not being true to ourselves and chase after something,” he said.
Still, Garden is vying to replace Conan O’Brien on The Late Show; however, seeing as NBC has hired Jimmy Fallon, Garden said his campaign at votejoegarden.com is basically moot.
Fortunately, Garden has a successful career at The Onion to fall back on.
ELON, N.C. – Ahmed Fadaam set aside his clay and took up reporting when the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 to keep an accurate account of the war that rages still in his home country.
Fadaam urged students to seek out the truth report it honestly in creative detail to maintain an informed public in a reporting class at Elon University Wednesday.
Detail-oriented sculptor embraces journalism
“Art was my life, I was not trying to be the man who chased stories,” Fadaam said. He said he wanted to remain in Iraq to witness the events in his homeland so that he could relay a first-hand account of what happened there to his children.
Reporting was a natural extension of his artistic background, Fadaam said. He credited his insatiable curiosity and attention to detail for his journalistic success.
This accidental reporter started working as a translator for NPR’s The Connection hosted by Canadian journalist Dick Gordon, went on to run the video desk for the Agence France Presse and concluded his journalism career in Iraq as the newsroom supervisor of the Baghdad Bureau for The New York Times.
Fadaam became an unpopular person with his countrymen, as his reporting work for the western media affiliated him with the U.S.-led invasion.
“After a while, it became unimportant whether you were working with the French or the Americans. Everyone is American.”
Watch Fadaam explain how being an artist led to being a journalist and the challenges he faces as such.
Artistic ambassador reports from across the Atlantic
Fadaam left his home in Iraq, relocated his family to Syria and moved to the United States last May to take up a visiting fellowship at the University of North Carolina. He’s continued to work in media, recording pod casts for Ahmed’s Diary, a blog for Dick Gordon’s The Story.
“As long as you are doing your job, and you believe in it, and you know that you are telling the truth and people will listen to you, then it’s not important [the resistance you face]. Keep doing what you are doing.”
A man in Baghdad once asked Fadaam why he was working with the media. Fadaam responded that the media only portray one side of Iraqi society – looters and destroyers. He said he wanted to show the capable side of the society.
Writing for the media can be a form of resistance itself, said Fadaam. It can be patriotism.
“When you want to fight back, you can do it with words. With bringing facts. With telling the world what they are missing,” Fadaam said.
Open communication is necessary to bring healing
“Iraq is not Saddam,” Fadaam said. He explained that there are a lot of misconceptions about Iraqis in America and about Americans in Iraq.
Americans know very little about the Iraqi culture outside of Hussein’s regime, and Iraqis know very little about America outside of the violence they’ve seen in Hollywood movies and during the invasion and occupation.
“Try to talk to each other away from policy, away from government, away from war,” Fadaam encouraged. “People to people.”
Fadaam suggested these stereotypes could be overcome if people were more informed and understood the difference between a public and its government.
Changing media landscape breeds distrust and confusion
Before the war, Fadaam said, there were only three newspapers and two TV stations, all government-owned.
Now, there are over 150 newspapers and from 70 to 80 TV stations, said Fadaam, each owned by a competing political party.
“They [Iraqis] don’t know who to trust,” Fadaam said. “Who’s telling the truth? Whom to follow?”
Patriotism melds with art and communication
Fadaam, haunted by images of death and destruction, gave up sculpting for a while. He has returned to his clay and said he hopes to continue to report as well.
Fadaam is currently constructing a life-size statue depicting the struggle of women in the Middle East as a gift for Elon University.
“Clay is like a germ, it’s like a disease. Once it gets you, you can’t get rid of it,” Fadaam said. “Journalism is the same.”
Elon students and faculty oppose Republican VP’s Elon rally
By Hannah Williams
Oct. 16, 2008
Elon, N.C. – Elon students and faculty who oppose Gov. Sarah Palin’s political stance plan to showcase their opposition at or to avoid entirely the vice presidential candidate’s campaign rally at Latham Park at 3 p.m. today.
Many political opponents interviewed said they did not have any qualms with the university’s decision to host Palin, seeing it as a part of the political process. Still, they had no plans to support her appearance.
Lauren Taylor, president the feminist group E.F.F.E.C.T., said she worried that the public would assume that Elon’s hosting of the event would mislead the public to believe that the university endorsed her candidacy.
“It’s frustrating to me that a woman who is in a position of leadership, such as Sarah Palin is, to not really working on feminist issues and assumptions,” said Taylor. “She should set aside her own personal values to focus on women in general and equality in general.”
Taylor and some other Elon feminists will informally be protesting the event with signs asking Palin to answer questions. Taylor said she hopes her protest will raise awareness that she will not be voting for Palin solely because she is a woman.
Taylor planned to attend the event and to listen to what Palin had to say, but said she would not support the candidate because Palin hasn’t challenged traditional gender roles and hasn’t addressed specific issue questions.
Watch Taylor’s response. .
College Democrats President Daniel Shutt said the group would not protest the rally but rather campaign on Sen. Barack Obama’s behalf during the event and welcomed others to join them at 2:30 p.m. by Fonville Fountain.
“We’ll be knocking on doors throughout the town of Elon, reminding Obama supporters that Early Voting has started, and providing voters with rides to polling places,” said Shutt. “We believe that strong grassroots organizing, not big rallies, will make the difference in this election.”
Ann Cahill, philosophy professor and department chair, said that although she has deep political differences with Palin, she is fine with the university’s decision to host her.
“She’s a compelling public figure, and we’re on the brink of an historic election.”
Listen to Cahill discuss her political beliefs.
Cahill said she would unfortunately be unable to attend the rally due to her class schedule.
“My first responsibility as a teacher is to offer my students the opportunity to continue their learning in our class; whether they do so, or attend the Palin rally, is their choice.”
Elon University administration announced it would adhere to the regular course schedule, despite the rally.
Palin’s “Road to Victory Rally” is scheduled during a hectic midterm week proceeding fall break at Elon. Many community members’ plans made it impossible for them to attend.
“Quite honestly, even if I were here and didn’t want to protest, I would feel like a bit of a hypocrite showing up at her event and appearing to be a supporter merely by my presence,” senior Amy Reitnouer said
Reitnouer, an Obama supporter, had planned to leave for fall break early Thursday afternoon prior to the announcement of Palin’s appearance.
“I can only hope that if Elon students do not agree with Palin’s, or the Republican party’s, positions, they will have the freedom, and guts, to still stand up and protest,” said Reitnouer.
She said it was unfortunate Elon agreed to host the candidate largely due to her recent media popularity.
“I’m not interested in anything she has to say,” said junior Andrew Pressley who scheduled his fall break departure specifically to avoid the rally.
Communications Professor Ocek Eke, who did not reveal his own political affiliation, welcomed Palin’s visit to Elon as an opportunity to engage the political process.
“This is what makes democracy vibrant, to expose ourselves to all different points of view,” he said. “I have encouraged my students, whether it’s Palin, Biden, Obama or McCain, to hear everybody. Listen to everybody. Make up your own mind.”
Eke said he expects a mixed reaction on campus.
“We have to respect people regardless of whether we agree with them or not,” he said.“I think that Governor Palin deserves our respect and also our welcome. If people want to protest her, they should definitely do that respectfully. “
Watch Eke’s interview about Palin’s rally.
Students, faculty and staff may still obtain tickets for the rally between 10:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. in the Koury Concourse.
The College Democrats will be gathering at Fonville Fountain in front of Alamance at 2:30 p.m. today to canvass support for the democratic ticket.
If interested in joining, contact Daniel Shutt at dshutt@elon.edu.
ELON, N.C. – School of Communications Dean Paul Parsons and Department Chair Don Grady held two informational sessions to discuss new curriculum requirements with students Monday, seven attended.
Grady was surprised at the low turnout. “I was expecting at least 100 students,” he said.
Most students in attendance were juniors concerned that the change would affect their plans for graduating, whether they continued under the old system with the new courses or declared a major under the new requirements.
Parsons told juniors that the changes would not dramatically alter their course of study. The new courses, to be offered in Fall 2009, will fulfill old requirements as well, he said.
Students who want to graduate under the new requirements need to re-declare their majors with academic advising, said Grady. He reminded students to declare any other majors and minors as well, as re-declaring will wipe your record.
Juniors in the School of Communications have the option to continue under the old curriculum or adopt the new curriculum requirements.
The School of Communications finalized its second substantive curriculum revision of this decade this summer, said Parsons in a recent interview with The Pendulum.
The revisions implemented aim both to better prepare students for careers on the cutting edge of communications and to better reflect the various programs offered in the school.
Juniors and seniors have the option of graduating under the new curriculum or fulfilling the old degree requirements. Freshmen and sophomores will pursue their degrees within the new program structure.
Parsons said that the old system did not seem to make much sense, as it offered only two degrees, Journalism of Communications with a concentration in Broadcast and New Media, Corporate or Cinema, and split news journalism into essentially two majors.
The new curriculum offers students four major options in the School of Communications:
- Journalism with concentrations in Print/Online and Broadcast news;
- Strategic Communications;
- Media Arts and Entertainment with concentrations in Broadcast/New Media and Cinema; and
- Communications Science.
In Journalism,a print/online news concentration reflects the old program’s journalism degree and a broadcast news concentration includes students who are pursuing television news careers.
“‘Strategic communications’ is really just a change in nomenclature for ‘communications with a corporate concentration,’” explained Parsons.
Media arts and entertainment will encompass students who wish to pursue careers in the entertainment media in either broadcast and new media or cinema.
Communications science is an additional major for students interested in communications theory and research, requires a minor and targets those who plan to attend graduate school.
Additionally, students can add optional emphases in Writing, Advertising, Photojournalism, Documentary, Sports Communication, Audio Recording and International Communications to their major by focusing their electives and internship in these areas.
The curriculum for each has been revamped to include degree-specific culmination courses:
- Multimedia Journalism for Journalism majors;
- Corporate Campaigns for Strategic Communications majors;
- Production for Media Arts and Entertainment majors; and
- Communication Inquiry for Communication Science majors.
In exchange, the Great Ideas: Capstone in Communications course has been reduced from a four-credit course to a two-credit course, freeing up more credit hours for electives. The course will only be offered for four credits through this spring.
Juniors who elect to graduate under the old curriculum can fulfill the capstone requirement with the two-credit option, but may need to take additional electives to compensate for the fewer credits to complete the required 52 credits within the School of Communications.
Internships under the new curriculum may be completed for one or two credits at a time. Nagatha Tonkins, the new internship director, is available to help students through the internship program.
More courses will also be offered, including Environmental Communications, Sports and Media, Sports Information, Audio for Visual Media and Media Management and Sales. Other courses may have altered titles to reflect course content changes. See a full course comparison here.
Finally, the communication course abbreviation has been changed to from JCM to COM to reflect the breadth of the communications programs.
Headstrong Hairstylist Offers Advice at No Extra Charge Eleonore Dunn’s Sharp Wit Guarantees Never a Dull Cut
By Hannah Williams
Oct. 11, 2008
ELON, N.C. – Eleonore Dunn simultaneously shampoos, cuts, dries and styles three self-described little old ladies’ hair on a dreary Thursday morning in late September. The women tease that Eleonore’s Hair Design is their own private club.
Outside Looking In - Eleonore cuts a client's hair on a dreary Thursday morning in Late September.
“If you don’t want to have gray hair, you don’t get to come in,” says a woman with her head hidden in silver rollers.
Her friend, sporting a towel turban hiding a similar hair setting, adds another rule: “If you have gray hair, you get to have it blonde.”
“We got old together,” Eleonore chuckles with her friends, but quickly corrects them. “I have clients ranging from 15 months to 97 years old,” she declares. She speaks in a hard-to-place accent that is a mix of German, Southern and Janssen – as in David Janssen of the 1960s television series “The Fugitive.”
The front door of Eleonore’s Hair Design stands slightly ajar, preventing the warmth of the shop from clouding the storefront windows and allowing the aroma of hairspray and freshly laundered towels to waft out into Williamson Avenue.
The inviting glow emanating from Eleonore’s shop reminds passersby of a time not too long ago, when the historic downtown housed the signature bustling businesses of a small town. It intrigues the curiosities of Elon students who’ve known little other than the status quo.
Eleonore, too, appears as a town fixture, moving easily within in the frame of her store windows, her hands nimbly juggling a pair of scissors and a comb as she snips off clients’ locks. She, however, was also once the new kid on the block.
European Roots
Born and raised in Germany, Eleonore was ill prepared for the South and the discrimination that ran deep in 1965 when she moved to North Carolina. Not only was she shocked by the segregation separating whites and blacks but also by the hostility toward foreigners, especially Germans.
Eleonore met her husband, Harold Dunn Sr., when he was stationed in Germany. While neither knew much of the other’s language, they managed to get by with German-English dictionaries and universal nonverbal communication.
He was shipped back home, and she joined him in the States six months later.
“When I came over here my mom gave me six months, because it was the country and I was just a city slicker,” said Eleonore.
Not only did Eleonore endure, she thrived in America, pursuing her passion to become a hair stylist.
Making the Cut
Growing up with her family in Germany, “my mother wouldn’t let me do it – to mess with people’s dirty hair,” Eleonore said. She discarded her mother’s warnings in favor of following her Grandfather’s advice for her new life in the States.
“He always taught us, do what you want. You don’t have to be ashamed of what type of work you do, as long as you earn your money honestly,” she recalled.
After grasping English through television watching, newspaper reading and husband pestering, Eleonore enrolled in beauty school.
Split Ends
She worked under another hairdresser after obtaining her cosmetology degree from Alamance Beauty College, which has since closed. Eleonore butted heads with a few of her boss’s clients, until one day when she could take no more.
A client came in while the owner was out of the shop, explained Eleonore. The woman wanted a haircut, but said she “didn’t want a ‘damn German’ to do her hair.”
“I didn’t want to do her damn hair either,” recounted Eleonore, who quit to open her own studio, a salon where people who wanted their hair styled and didn’t mind her heritage would be welcome – to heck with the rest of them.
Eleonore's Hair Design opened in 1980 in the original Elon Post Office building, constructed in 1888. Eleonore's is the only non-university business left in Elon's downtown strip on Williamson Avenue.
Setting Up Shop
Eleonore opened Eleonore’s Hair Design in 1980. She set up shop in the original Elon Post Office built in 1888, which had since been converted into a barbershop.
Eleonore’s Hair Design was smack dab in the middle of downtown, wedged between the town hall and a Laundromat-turned-art gallery.
“I opened here because the one-man police department was right next door,” said Eleonore, who still respects the local authorities and trusts them to maintain order although the police department and town hall have since expanded and relocated across the railroad tracks.
As the sole town representative in the original downtown strip on Williamson Avenue, Eleonore keeps a watchful eye on the community through the open blinds from her perch in the middle of her storefront.
She noticed and quickly adjusted a bike parked perpendicular to the bench out front that was blocking the sidewalk and preventing her “little old ladies” from walking to their cars.
“If I had seen the biker, I would’ve said something,” said Eleonore as she reemerged into the beauty parlor, having completed her mission.
Snip Off the Old Block
The downtown area has been completely supplanted by the university, said Eleonore. She owns her store and is not in the market to sell.
“I lucked out,” she explained, “Elon takes over everything.” She proceeded to chronicle all of the businesses that had been replaced: Mr. Hank’s furniture store, an insurance agent, an accountant, the original Brown & Co., Elon Grill, a convenience store, the town hall and the art gallery.
A client remarked, “You should be the town historian.”
Eleonore’s new neighbors include Elon University’s student public relations group, Live Oak Communications, and yearbook, Phi Psi Cli; a sorority shop, All that J.A.S.; Aramark-owned Acorn Coffee Shop and Brown & Co.; and The Pendulum offices.
“The university owns everything from the railroad tracks straight across,” lamented a customer.
Eleonore and her friends have seen houses demolished for the construction of McMichael Science Building, their grocer and drug store replaced with Elon Arts West and the local service station disassembled and later replaced by an Elon University sign. Eleonore pulled photographs out of a dresser drawer to prove it.
Despite her qualms with the university’s spreading influence, Eleonore’s Hair Design attracts many students and faculty due to its convenient location and small-town feel.
More than a Haircut
Elon University Junior Ryan Cantanese started getting haircuts from Eleonore after another student recommended her shop. Cantanese was drawn to the small, local store as opposed to a giant chain.
Eleonore meticulously trims Ethelene Porter
“She knows the people whose hair she cuts. She knows their lives,” he said. “It’s kind of just the old-fashioned thing where it’s not just getting a haircut. It’s going, getting a haircut and just talking about your life or the issues of the day. It’s much more personal.”
Not being one of the “little old ladies,” Cantanese said at first he almost felt he was offending Eleonore’s friends by barging into their world.
“But once they get to know you they realize that you’re not just another student; you’re actually ‘Ryan.’ You’re actually another person. They warm up to you,” Cantanese said.
Eleonore’s beauty parlor would be better-suited as Eleonore’s Salon – not that Eleonore’s Hair Design is a misnomer – but that her shop is a salon in the renaissance sense of the term: a central hub for exchanging ideas and stories, discussing politics and business, sharing life.
Eleonore cuts the hair of long-time client Porter who sits in the chair closest to the window, the one at which Eleonore usually works.
“People show up like an hour early for their haircuts to hang out and talk first,” said Cantanese in disbelief. Still, who could blame them when their appointment promises diversion in addition to style?
“Eleonore is a firecracker,” said Cantanese. “She has things to say. She’s always going to have things to say. She’s funny. She’s opinionated, and she’s not afraid to say what she thinks, which I respect a lot.”
Practical Pampering
While the convenience and ambiance drew Cantanese to Eleonore’s shop, he also saved his wallet from taking too drastic a cut. Men’s haircuts run $16, with the option of adding a shampoo and style for $2 more.
A sign hanging in Eleonore's shop lists salon services offered and their respective prices.
Eleonore advertises women’s cuts for $22 add a shampoo for $24 and finish with style for $27.
Additional services offered in the salon include shampoo sets, $17; perms, all over color and sunglitz, $65 each; color retouch, $50; and lip and brow waxing, $10 each.
Her prices run standard for everyone, with the exception of chemical treatments that cost those with longer hair more money.
“I’ve had students come in here and ask if I had a more expensive haircut,” recalled Eleonore incredulously. “As if a more expensive haircut meant a better cut. I told them I could charge them more, if they wanted.”
No Shortcuts
On a chilly morning the first Thursday in October, Eleonore and her clients discussed the vice presidential debate airing that evening and the problems plaguing the American economy.
Eleonore lamented the excessive debt. “Everybody wants, but you don’t need it. You have to know the difference,” she declared.
Her granddaddy taught her the value of money and not to be wasteful, said Eleonore. She said she was never handed anything, and thus can appreciate her own accomplishments.
“Everything that we have,” she said as she talked about herself and her husband, “we can look back and know that we worked hard for it.”
Eleonore’s husband, Harold Dunn Sr., worked for Burlington Industries for 33 years, until the company went bankrupt. He had trouble finding a job after his disappeared.
“It’s a shame no one hires you when you hit a certain age,” said Eleonore. Eventually, Dunn landed a job as a detention officer, a far cry from his previous career servicing computers.
“At least we have insurance!” Eleonore said of her husband’s employment.
Shear Will
Later that morning, conversation in the shop revolved around the various health problems ailing mutual friends when Eleonore answered a phone call from a client cancelling her appointment for the following day due to illness.
Eleonore works four days a week, even after battling breast cancer twice and undergoing open-heart surgery.
Eleonore was washing a woman’s hair at the time. The woman noticed the pink ribbon pinned to Eleonore’s shirt. “I have one of those at home too!” she said.
Eleonore is a two-time breast cancer survivor. She beat the cancer in 1990, and it was in remission for 17 years.
Last year, the cancer came back. Eleonore was optimistic about fighting it, “The second time is always easier,” she told her physician.
“No,” the doctor disagreed, “the second time is always harder.” Still, Eleonore overcame the cancer.
Unfortunately, the cancer medications also caused heart complications, necessitating open-heart surgery. Eleonore took time off to recuperate, but was back on her feet and in the shop in no time.
Highlights
Despite her health complications, Eleonore still works four days a week in the shop. She also enjoys gardening, knitting, traveling back to Germany and dancing.
“My granddaddy taught us how to dance, when we were little. We would stand on his feet,” Eleonore reminisced. Thus, she learned the waltz, tango and rumba.
The only minor problem: “I married a man who has two left feet,” laughed Eleonore. Still, she loves to dance and does so often when she travels to Germany to visit her family.
She described to her friends the once lengthy process of booking a holiday to Germany to see her relatives.
“I used to have to make reservations three months ahead of time and had to tell them what time I called, and then the operator called me back,” she said. “It’s a different world now.”
Although traveling has become easier, Eleonore said she wishes she could still take the helicopter shuttle that would once bring her from La Guardia or Newark airports to JFK, the only international hub.
“I loved to fly with the helicopter,” she recalled. “When you were flying in the nighttime and everything was lit up over the city it was beautiful.”
Eleonore enjoys visiting Germany, but said that she now feels at home in Elon. “There are only two things that I still miss after all these years,” said Eleonore. “My bakery and my butcher stores.”
Stylish Finish Still Out of Sight
Eleonore is at home in her small town and in her element at her shop. It takes her less than ten minutes to commute from home to work.
Eleonore's Hair Design will continue to be a Williamson Avenue staple. Eleonore has no plans to close her shop anytime soon.
Standing at her post by the storefront windows, wielding a hairdryer in one hand and a round brush in the other, Eleonore styles a client’s hair to silvery perfection.
“Sooner or later, I have to quit, I reckon,” sighs Eleonore.
“I hope it’s not ‘til later,” chimes in one client. “Only when we give you permission,” demands another.
Eleonore has no plans for closing up shop anytime soon. Twenty-eight years and counting, she continues sharpen her craft and her resolve.
Another day. Another client. Another reason to be alive.
Back at the rinse station, Eleonore shampoos a client’s hair, soapsuds gather on her forearms and glisten in the shop’s soft light.
Eleonore says she’s grateful for today. “Nobody’s promised tomorrow, be thankful for every day you have.”
Eleonore offers the best advice she’s ever received, which comes from her mother and granddaddy.
War reporting trying, but necessary, says Jurate Kazickas at Elon University Female reporters fought to cover war
By Hannah Williams
Oct. 9, 2008
At age 24, Jurate Kazickas quit her job at Look Magazine, took her $500 prize money from the game show Password, secured a press card and bought a plane ticket to the war zone that was Vietnam. The year was 1967.
Kazickas authored a chapter in War Torn, a compilation of stories from female correspondents in Vietnam. She offered the book for $5 at Elon Thursday and donated the profits to Elon's School of Communications.
Kazickas, drawing on her own personal experience reporting from Vietnam, spoke about female war correspondents from World War II to Iraq at Elon University Thursday.
In Vietnam, as a freelance journalist, Kazickas said she wanted to focus on the fighting man.
“What was it like to be in a war you don’t understand? To have to kill somebody that you don’t even know?”
Kazickas said she often went the opposite direction of the high profile combat missions. She couldn’t – and didn’t wish to – compete with the major players, covering the major stories, she said.
During the war, she mostly wrote “hometowners” – stories about the “grunts”, 18- to 19-year-old soldiers, she met in combat and submitted to their local papers. A rewarding experience, she said.
Close call at Khe Sanh
She abandoned her rule of avoiding major press hot spots for the opportunity to cover the battle at Khe Sanh.
“I hadn’t been there for more than 24 hours when an artillery shell came over with my name on it,” Kazickas said. “I made the fundamental mistake of running to the nearest foxhole,” she explained – when she should have ducked for cover – and in the process was hit by flying shrapnel.
Kazickas’s pride suffered the worst blow, she said.
“When a marine is wounded, the first thing you do is strip all your clothes off,” Kazickas explained. As a female reporter traveling with marines, the doctors were tentative to have her bare all.
“Sure enough,” she said. “I had a piece of shrapnel in my rear end.”The doctors cleared the tent to remove the fragment.
Utterly humiliated, Kazickas asked, “Is it below my bikini line?”
She didn’t shed a tear until a soldier looked at her face filled with shrapnel and said, “Your days in showbiz are over” – assuming since she was a woman in Vietnam, she must be a showgirl.
A single tear rolled down her cheek, she said.
Enough war for one lifetime
Kazickas said she wanted to remain in Vietnam after recovering from her injury, which left no permanent damage, but returned to the States shortly thereafter.
“It wasn’t the same after that, I was really, really scared,” she said. “The next time I was in a fire fight I just found myself shaking.”
Kazickas said she went to Vietnam in favor of the war, growing up in a fiercely anticommunist Lithuanian household, but returned feeling the effort was futile.
“The daily in and out of death just killed me,” she said.
Why cover war?
Kazickas said she was drawn to Vietnam because, “It was the biggest story. It was the only story. It was on the front pages every day.”
Although she said that one war was enough for her, Kazickas vehemently said that war reporting was necessary to raise public awareness of atrocities.
“We as journalists have a duty, an absolute duty, to inform people on what’s happening,” she said. “We have to go to forgotten places, forgotten people and write about forgotten issues to broaden the human consciousness.”
Furthermore, Kazickas highlighted the appeal of a combat zone.
“War’s very intoxicating. It’s erotic. It’s addictive,” Kazickas said; however, war is also extremely dangerous.
As a journalist contemplating war correspondence, Kazickas said you must ask the fundamental question: “Is any story worth your life?”
“Male or female, bullets and bombs don’t discriminate.”
The deadly reality of combat was one reason women have been historically excluded from war reporting, said Kazickas.
Women in war
“Women who wanted to cover the war had to fight on two fronts,” Kazickas said of female journalists during World War II.
First, women had to confront their editors, as they were not allowed to be assigned to foreign bureaus much less cover war, said Kazickas. Second, they had to take on the U.S. military who would not allow women in combat.
According to Kazickas, these male authorities claimed, “War was a man’s story. … War was too dangerous. … Women would be a distraction to the soldiers. … There was no women’s latrine.”
But the women who covered WWII were ambitious, curious, and adventurous, Kazickas said. “Nothing was going to stop them.”
Among the females famous for their reportage during WWII, noted by Kazickas, were Martha Gellhorn, Margaret Bourke-White, Dickey Chapelle and Marguerite Higgins.
Korea coverage
Higgins helped to pave the way for women to be war correspondents again in Korea, said Kazickas.
Countering the charge that there were no female latrines, she said, “There are no shortage of bushes in Korea.”
One of 100 female and 1600 total reporters in Korea, Higgins received a Pulitzer Prize for her war coverage, said Kazickas.
Editors began to realize the competitive advantage of having women on the ground as their female readership embraced the feminine perspective on war coverage.
Furthermore, male reporters became defensive, claiming that women had an unfair advantage, said Kazickas.
Female advantage in Iraq
Kazickas said over half of the war correspondents in Iraq are women. A huge accomplishment due in large part due to Christiane Amanpour’s televised coverage of the Bosnian conflict, she said.
“Seeing her while snipers were shooting in the back and in the trenches, Americans became a little more comfortable with the idea [of female war correspondents],” said Kazickas.
In a Muslim country, specifically, the female reporters have the advantage of being able to speak to both the male officials and the females in their homes, said Kazickas.
Reporting in Iraq is in no way easy for female reporters, however.
“It is enormously dangerous. Car bombs, suicide bombs. You just don’t know where the next explosion is going to come from,” said Kazickas.
Reporters in Iraq face an addition risk of kidnapping, said Kazickas.
Considering war correspondence?
The task of war correspondence is both high risk and high responsibility, said Kazickas.
“You just are not prepared for the horrors of war … but when you actually see something so horrible, it sears your soul forever,” she said.
Kazickas encouraged the audience to pursue careers in journalism, but said, “If you want to cover the war, talk to me first.”
